Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Before Mulder and Scully, before Steed and Mrs. Peel, two government agents risked all to discover the truth: AIRSHIP HUNTERS.

My new book, co-authored with the talented Duane Spurlock, launches from a real-life event, the Great Airship Mystery of the 1890s. Duane and I have gone beyond the mystery to ferret out the truth behind the strange phenomena and the result is an exciting series of adventures that spreads out across the Eastern United States in 1897.

Please take a look at the pre-order information. We hope you like what you see and are intrigued enough to take this unique fictional journey with us and our two agents, Valiantine and Cabot.

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

CORPUS VILE is my ode to the "weird menace" and "shudder" pulps of the Classic Pulp era, made popular in such publications as THE OCTOPUS and THE SCORPION, and through the prolific writing of such pulp authors as Norvell Page and Hugh B. Cave.

My serialized CORPUS VILE saga centers around a great metropolis sometime in the late 1930s, a city awakening to a growing horror in its midst, one that will bring its citizens to their knees in terror and pain. Presiding over the city is a blind mayor who seems to be the focus of the mysterious evil that comes in like the fog, a man beloved by the city's inhabitants, but hamstrung by his inability to see through to the truth of the matter. Another man tries to help him, the city's ex-District Attorney, once a trusted servant of the people, but now fallen due to corruption and vice. Together, these two characters will attempt to stave off the creeping horror that infiltrates their home by degrees, and uncover the mystery of two words scrawled in blood at each scene of the evil's progress: CORPUS VILE.

The series begins with a Prelude, CORPUS VILE: DEATH ON BROADSTREET, which introduces not only the story's main characters, but details the first assault on the city by the mystery villain behind the lurking evil.

The serialized novel itself kicks off with CORPUS VILE: DEATH IN THE CITY, CHAPTER ONE: THE RED JUDGE, in which the city awakens from the horror of the Prelude a few months later, only to find it never truly ended. A vigilante also begins his crusade to root out the festering evil, but discovers only more questions, not answers, to the baffling mystery of Corpus Vile.

The story continues in CORPUS VILE; DEATH IN THE CITY, CHAPTER TWO: RATS IN THE WALLS, in which an attack on City Hall sends the city's blind mayor down a path to terror as his friends and associates begin to die around him. The new Chief of Police also fends off his own personal attack, and in doing so unearths a horrifying secret, one which may shed some scant light on the mystery of Corpus Vile.

CORPUS VILE is published quarterly by Pros Se Productions, and available on Amazon as part of Pro Se's Single Shot e-book publishing initiative. As always, please leave me a review!

Saturday, March 7, 2015

It's come to my attention that there may be some small confusion about who's who in my Adventure Team fiction on Kindle Worlds, so I've prepared this Primer to illustrate my cast.

NOTE:This is for my AT fiction only. This does not represent Hasbro's intentions or those of any other writer. This is purely to show with pictures which of the characters in my stories represent the different GI Joe AT action figures.

GI Joe: Ex-soldier, now Adventure Team Commander. Smart, strong, capable, but a lot of heart, too.

Marcus: Joe's right-hand man, been with him the longest. He's the soul of the Adventure Team, cool and composed, a steady hand in times of turmoil.

Sarge: The team's expert pilot. Strong and silent type, but someone you'd want at your side heading into danger.

Red: The salty sailor, mouthy and opinionated, but deep as the ocean.

Greg: Young and resourceful, the archaeology expert who's taken recruits under his wing the same as Marcus did for him.

Kent: One of the team's "beardless wonders" along with Greg. A wizard with the AT equipment, and a mechanical marvel.

Glenn: The astronaut, light-hearted and a music-lover, but always with an eye on the big picture.

Mike: The young recruit with the record collection...

Or is thisMike? Hmm...

You can find the entire Adventure Team in my new novella, available at Kindle Worlds for just $1.99

Thursday, March 5, 2015

MYSTERY OF THE SUNKEN TOMB is the first long-form G.I. Joe Adventure Team prose fiction novella released on the Kindle Worlds licensed publication platform. It is currently available in e-format only, and sells for just $1.99.

Set in 1973 at the height of the Adventure Team toy era, MYSTERY OF THE SUNKEN TOMB is jam-packed with all the fan-favorite Adventure Team equipment, vehicles, and mission themes of Hasbro’s 1970-73 releases. If that isn’t cool enough, each of the G.I. Joe Adventure Team action figures of the era have been fleshed out as individual characters in the story, each with their own unique personalities, skills, and specialties. Overall, MYSTERY OF THE SUNKEN TOMB offers all the Adventure team action, danger, and excitement G.I. Joe fans crave.

Jim Beard writes adventure fiction in a classic pulp style. A native of Toledo, Ohio, he was introduced to comic books at an early age by his father, who passed on to him a love for the medium and the pulp characters who preceded it. After decades of reading, collecting and dissecting comics, Jim became a published writer when he sold a story to DC Comics in 2002. Since that time he's written official Star Wars and Ghostbusters comic stories and contributed articles and essays to several volumes of comic book history.

His prose work includes GOTHAM CITY 14 MILES, a book of essays on the 1966 Batman TV series; SGT. JANUS, SPIRIT-BREAKER, a collection of pulp ghost stories featuring an Edwardian occult detective; MONSTER EARTH, a shared-world giant monster anthology; and CAPTAIN ACTION: RIDDLE OF THE GLOWING MEN, the first pulp prose novel based on the classic 1960s action figure.

Jim also currently provides regular content for Marvel.com, the official Marvel Comics website, and is a regular columnist for Toledo Free Press.

Please email jsajim@yahoo.com to schedule an interview with Jim, or for more information on MYSTERY OF THE SUNKEN TOMB.